By Sean Scully

Rep. Jim McGovern was horrified by the violence
he witnessed in East Timor last year and thinks the
United Nations needs an armed force to prevent
anything like it from happening again.

"A lot of lives could have been saved" if the
international body had troops at its disposal, the
Massachusetts Democrat said.

Mr. McGovern, therefore, has introduced a
resolution in the House of Representatives calling for
a 6,000-man international military force that could step
into dangerous situations and keep the peace at a
moment's notice.
He dismisses any suggestion that this is the first
step toward creating an international army. Congress
last year passed a law saying that the United States
would not pay its dues to the United Nations if it
attempts to build a permanent military force.

"I know there are some people who are suspicious,
paranoid, about the U.N.," Mr. McGovern said. "I
think they have seen too many Oliver Stone movies;
they think everything is a conspiracy."

"It's a slippery slope," said Marc Thiessen,
spokesman for the North Carolina Republican. "Next,
[the United Nations] will be saying they don't want to
collect contributions from member nations, they want
the power to tax. This isn't fantasy: It was suggested
by the last secretary general."
Whether it is called an "army," a "police force," or
a "rapid deployment force," Mr. Helms opposes
putting armed troops under permanent U.N. control,
he said.

"There are basic trappings of sovereignty: the
power to exact justice, the power to tax, the power to
call up a military," Mr. Thiessen said. "These are
powers the United Nations should never possess."

Some members of the House agree that any armed
U.N. contingent smacks uncomfortably of an
international army.
"It's only a matter of definition whether something
is a military force or police force," said Rep. Roscoe
G. Bartlett, Maryland Republican and member of the
House Armed Services Committee.

U.N. officials have long suggested they need more
power to carry out their peacekeeping missions. The
recent fiasco in Sierra Leone, where rebels captured
500 U.N. peacekeepers, shook the organization.

"We have to rethink how we equip troops and
prepare them for these operations," Secretary General
Kofi Annan told the London Independent last week.
"In that way, they will be able to depend on
themselves and do what they have to do."

While Mr. Annan has not openly called for a
permanent military force, "he thinks it's a really good
idea," according to Rep. Constance A. Morella,
Maryland Republican and a co-sponsor of the House
resolution, who recently had lunch with Mr. Annan.
"He feels some money [spent in advance] saves
lives."

Two years ago, Mr. Annan attempted to organize
a "rapid deployment headquarters" that could
coordinate peacekeeping troops from around the
world. Congress reacted sharply after finding that the
White House had given $200,000 to the effort, a
discovery that prompted Mr. Helms' legislation tying
the issue to U.S. dues.

Critics of the United Nations, including Mr. Helms,
say the organization has drifted away from its original
peacekeeping missions. Where its duties were once
confined to monitoring existing peace agreements, the
United Nations has increasingly injected itself into hot
spots where the peace is unstable â€” such as Sierra
Leone â€” or where there are no coherent
organizations to negotiate peace â€” such as East
Timor, where gangs only loosely controlled by
Indonesia, killed as many as 10,000 persons.

Giving the United Nations some armed forces
could lead to even more dangerous assignments that
could draw the United States or other powers into
dangerous regional wars, Mr. Thiessen said. The
United Nations had to rely, for example, on heavily
armed British soldiers to rescue its failed mission in
Sierra Leone.

"Peacekeeping is a mess," Mr. Thiessen said. "The
solution is not to create a permanent U.N. military
force to get involved," but to rely on local and regional
organizations such as NATO.

Mr. McGovern and his supporters insist a U.N.
force is needed to fill a hole where regional
organizations such as NATO cannot or will not step
in. Africa has proven particularly troublesome for the
United Nations since there are no strong regional
organizations or alliances to keep order.

"This force will allow the Security Council, subject
to a U.S. veto, to deploy well-trained and -equipped
peacekeepers within 15 days of a resolution, bringing
immediate relief and protection to civilian populations
emerging from violent conflict," Mr. McGovern wrote
last month in a letter seeking co-sponsors for his bill.

As envisioned by Mr. McGovern, the "United
Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force"
would stay on the ground for only a few months while
U.N. leaders scour the globe for troops for a more
traditional peacekeeping force.
Because of the long time it now takes to build a
peacekeeping team from scratch, he said, the United
Nations has found it difficult to respond to violence in
places such as Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Kosovo and
Congo. Often order is restored only after thousands
die.
"Once we've decided to do something, it takes a
while to do something," Mr. McGovern says of the
current system.

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